Smit on Refugee 'Failures' in Macleans

Anneke Smit

Professor Anneke Smit wrote an article for Macleans Magazine titled, "Canadians have turned a blind eye to the Liberals’ refugee failures." In the article Smit posits that Canada’s big talk on refugees doesn’t align with the government’s private-sponsorship cap—which, she says, was swept under the rug.

The article also notes that a group of 24 Windsor Law students and faculty recently delivered an open letter to Prime Minister Trudeau and Immigration Minister Ahmed Hussen, with the signatures of nearly 700 academics, students, refugee settlement workers, sponsor group members, advocates and concerned members of the community. The letter contains four calls to action:

1. Significantly increase overall the number of resettlement spaces available in Canada for 2017 and beyond;
2. Clear the backlog of (Syrian and other) private sponsorship applications;
3. Lift the private sponsorship cap for Syrian and Iraqi refugees;
4. Facilitate family reunification more effectively for Syrian and other refugees in Canada, through private sponsorship and/or a streamlined extended family reunification category.